Silver Marker
by Amaranthyn
Summary: "What did you write?" X questioned before he could bite his tongue. Silver gave a small smile, "It's a quote I tend to write on myself… 'Ame futte chi katamaru…' It means, 'After the rain, earth hardens.'" (Manga-Based Story) A story in which Silver teaches X that there's safer ways to deal with pressure than with a blade. Trigger warnings inside.
**Note: Characters speak French and Japanese. I apologize in advance for the translations as they are not and will not be perfect. I browsed the internet long and hard to find the best fit translations while staying away from Google Translate. Some translations will be found at the bottom while others are repeated in English by the characters.**

 **Manga-based universe. Characters are from the Pokémon Adventures manga and follow's the Japanese names (IE: Gary is Green, Main Female Protagonist of FireRed and LeafGreen is Blue)**

 **Disclaimers: I do not own Pokémon nor its characters. The plot, however, is mine.**

 **Warning: Unbeta'd. All mistakes are mine.**

 **Trigger Warning: Depictions of self-harm, blood, and mentions of suicide. Read at your own risk.**

* * *

X let out a deep breath. He looked around, swallowing loudly.

He was alone; he was finally able to think for himself. He didn't have to worry about Shauna's tearful eyes; Y's disappointed tone; Tierno's crushing embrace or Trevor's wavering advice. He could deal with this by himself. He was alone; alone away from his dearest friends. He was tired of hurting them. He was exhausted from having to smile for their sake. Frankly, he needed time alone so he could just be himself.

The boy took off his ruby red hat, his fingers running through his raven locks. His bluish-grey eyes stared at the pond in front of him. He discovered it while hiking with his PokéDex friends – he had to deviate from the path to relieve himself but ended up finding this gem instead.

Fog hovered just above the lake's still surface, offering an eerie atmosphere to the nippy day. Not a single Pokémon dared disturb the serenity of the liquid – perhaps relaxing in the cool water after the heatwave the region experienced.

X sighed yet again, breathing in the cool, damp air as he thought about the circumstances that brought him to the lake's edge.

He and his friends were on a camping trip in the wilderness of Unova. To anyone else, that would sound like a blast; fresh air, quiet wilderness, wild Pokémon, camp fires, sleeping under the stars… But all X wanted to do was stay home with the comfort of his bed. Not only that, but the camping trip doubled as a PokéDex Holder training session. Dex Holders from around the world gathered for it; including the famous ones from Kanto and Johto.

Shauna, Tierno and Trevor were ecstatic to say the least. Shauna looked up to her seniors with admiration; Tierno wanted to learn more about their different cultures to capture the beauty in his dances; Trevor wanted to speak to his elders and gain advice on how to gather research better. Even Y was happy she could further her skills as a sky trainer, even showing off to the others a bit. As for him, X merely wished to be alone. He was already a world renowned trainer, what else could they possibly teach him?

The reminders of his fame made the trainer cringe, curling in on himself. It was getting so much harder… And his added fame of being a Dex Holder merely made it worse. The paparazzi hardly left him alone, just as before; the pressure to be more perfect than his successful younger self was ten-fold.

X drew himself out of his thoughts, feeling a panic attack starting. His breath shortened as his chest felt tight; the boy forced himself to take long, deep breaths in order to calm himself. Digging into the pocket of his azure jacket, the boy gripped the cold steel that weighed inside.

Right, this is what he came here for. This will help him relax; to help him deal with the emotional strain. This will keep his mind active on the physical aspect of things and leave the mental aspects alone.

X didn't notice as his hand trembled, pulling the harsh steel from his pocket. It took a while for him to acquire it; how many people would sell this to a young boy? But he eventually did, a feat that made him quite proud.

The Kalos native pressed the button, jumping slightly as the sharp blade surged from the handle. A shred of anxiety kicked in as X thumbed the blade. He tested the sharpness, realizing it didn't take too much pressure to make it start to sting.

The boy almost dropped his blade, his breaths coming out in short pants. Doubt filled his mind as he glared at the blade in hatred.

Was he really going to go through with this? What if he makes a mistake? What will his friends do if they find out he tried this? Would they still be his friends? Send him to a mental asylum for something so stupid?

X bit his lip hard in attempt to cease his racing thoughts. No, he would go through with this. He did his research. He knew where and how hard. He knew the proper medical procedure. There was water right in front of him for cleaning, and sterile gauze in his pocket.

Trying to get his nerves in order, the boy eased the knife down to his left wrist. His fingers felt cold holding the frosty steel; they trembled in anticipation. The silvery blade drew closer and closer to the unblemished skin. Suddenly, the skin was splitting along the knife's tip, trying desperately to keep away from the sharpness.

Crimson plasma seeped from the self-inflicted wound; a pained moan falling from the boy's lips. His breath hitched, sensations filling him to the core. He threw the blade down out of reflex, clutching his bleeding arm.

He quickly propped up onto his knees, shuffling towards the water where he dipped his burning forearm in. The icy water only amplified the pain; X started to see blackspots in his vision.

Without warning, leaves started rustling, moving towards him. X cursed at himself; he was out alone, vulnerable and incapacitated. He left his precious Pokémon, including Marriso, at camp so he wouldn't be bothered. Some wild Pokémon probably smelled his blood… Now he was done for.

" _Anaka wa baka,_ X-san," a soft voice chided from behind him.

X recognized the voice, but barely. The owner of the voice rarely spoke, but the quietness and foreign language had the boy realizing who it was.

"Silver…" the bleeding boy choked out.

Said male knelt into the mud next to X, his red hair cascading in front of his namesake eyes.

" _Baka, baka…_ " Silver repeated, mumbling through his teeth. He bit off his gloves, yanking them off before quickly stuffing them into his sweater pocket. His pale hands reached into the water, the temperature seemingly not affecting the older teen as he gingerly washed away the blood.

"Do you have any bandages…?" the redhead mumbled, his eyes trained on X's forearm. His voice was quiet still, a slight accent due to Japanese being his first language and not English.

" _Oui_ …" X nodded, using his free, wet hand to reach for them.

Without another word, Silver guided X's arm from the water. He used part of his sleeve to dry around the wound, but never touching the cut itself. When he was content that it was dry enough, he wrapped the alabaster gauze around the younger boy's arm. X merely sat there on his knees, unable to look at his senior in the eyes.

" _Comment m'as tu trouvé_? How did you find me?"

"I followed you," the redhead muttered. "I thought you were up to no good… and I was right."

There was a pregnant pause between them. The water splashed against the shore as the fog drifted around them.

"Well?"

X blinked, meeting the cold eyes of his senior. "Well what?"

" _Nande_? Why?"

It was a simple question. Simple questions have simple answers. Whether or not one understands the simplicity of the answer… that remained to be told. Instead of giving the steely-eyed boy a definitive answer, X merely shrugged his shoulders half-heartedly. "I don't know…"

Silver sighed to himself, closing his eyes. X noticed that he looked smaller than before. Plainly, he looked exhausted, complete with sunken cheeks and dark bags under his eyes.

" _Katte ni shiro..."_ Silver muttered in his mother tongue. "Give me your knife," he demanded, switching to English.

X stared blankly at the silver-eyed Dex Holder for a brief moment, his lips slowly curling into a frown. " _Non…_ It's mine. I'm not giving it to you."

A sharp intake of air passed through Silver's lips as his eyes grew dark. He glared at X with dominance and ferocity that rivalled that of a Gengar's Glare. His lips curled into a sneer before he repeated the words prominently, "Give me your knife, X-san."

Without missing a beat, X reached down and handed the muddy knife to his senior. A slight shiver went up his spine as all he could do was stare at the quiet teen-turned dominant.

Silver pocketed the weapon, his cruel expression replaced with a tired one; "Don't do that again. Trust me when I say that you don't want to leave scars on your body."

" _Pourquoi_? Why should I?"

A faraway look appeared on the redhead's face as he shifted his gaze to the water. His lips formed a thin line before he began speaking again, "Look… There's better ways with dealing with stress and stuff like this… I know Red chooses to battle trainers to keep his head clear... And I'm pretty sure Green picks up his guitar to strum away his blues… Blue tends to steal more when she's stressed… But she also goes shopping a lot too to clear her head. Yellow disappears into the forest for a while with her Pokémon… Gold gambles away his winnings – and earns them back – while Crystal curls up with a good book when she's down."

X deciphered Silver's words carefully, noticing the distinct lack of one person from the group of people he mentioned.

" _Et… Et tu?_ What of you?"

The redhead seemed to have a habit of sighing, considering he sighed yet again before eyeing X. "That's how I know you don't want to keep cutting…"

Without another word, Silver lifted the sleeve of his sweater. He held up his right arm to show X, a sickening feeling filling the boy as his eyes graced over Silver's skin.

The pale skin was littered with scars. Some were pale and faded while others were a shiny pink. Some went the length of his forearm and onward underneath his sleeve while others just criss-crossed his wrist. One cut in particular must have been really deep as it left an angry, thick patch of scarred tissue that still seemed sore despite the fact it was old.

Silver shook his sleeve back down over his wrist, but the young Kalos native couldn't tear his eyes away from the hidden arm.

"And that's just one arm…" the teen snorted dryly, as if it were funny. "I got my left arm in just as bad of a state… They go all the way up to my shoulders. I've cut my torso too… I usually go for my sides though; just above the hips. I got scars lining my upper thighs… I've got a few on my calves when I ran out of room anywhere else."

"Ran out of room?"

The Kanto native shrugged his shoulders as if it were nothing, "It happened a few times when I couldn't control myself…"

X really felt like he was going to be sick now. He felt weak and dizzy from just cutting himself once, but it was obvious that Silver was a frequent and avid cutter. The thought of seeing the scrawny teen covered in the nasty blemishes, then thinking of his own body ending in such a state made a choked sob escape him.

" _Pourquoi…_?"

Again, the teen shrugged. "I got hooked onto it when I was younger… I had no other way to deal with the insanity inside my head. I wasn't comfortable burdening my friends with it… And I wasn't going to see any therapist about it; they'd probably deem me clinically insane or depressed, and put me on some stupid drugs… So I turned to my knife and it sort of stuck."

X nodded his head slowly, suddenly finding interest in a small pebble on the lake shore.

"I don't cut as much as I used to, though," Silver casually mentioned. "Guess you could say I found a safer alternative."

"You talk to your friends?"

A short, breathy laugh, " _Īe_ … Not exactly something I would do… But you should, though. I think your friends would love to help you if they can."

The raven-haired boy nodded stiffly, waiting for the Johto Dex Holder to spill his secret.

Instead of explaining, Silver began digging into his pockets. X raised an eyebrow in inquiry, watching the teen pull out items he had stuffed into his pockets and depositing them into the mud.

His black gloves, a white handkerchief, a red PokéDex, a gum wrapper, a varnished pocket knife…

X felt himself make a grab for the pocketknife. It wasn't his; his was just a cheap stainless steel one you can get at a camping store. The knife Silver pulled out has a beautiful, dark oak varnished handle with a silver blade that was hidden inside. The wood was stained red; evidence of its previous usages.

"Don't touch that," Silver growled as he noticed X's fingers inching towards the blade.

" _Désolé_ …"

Not finding what he was looking for in the pocket he was digging in, Silver searched through his other pocket until he pulled out a handful of colourful permanent markers. A small smile crossed the boy's lips as they tumbled to the lake shore.

"These… These are my alternatives," he mumbled, picking up one of the pocket-sized ones.

A quick count concluded there were five pocket-sized markers, each a different colour and two, regular sized ones. Silver had picked up the red marker.

" _À quoi ça sert_? What is it for?"

"This."

The redhead put the cap of the marker between his teeth, biting it off. He rolled down the sleeve of his right arm before proceeding to draw on his skin.

X watched the older boy drag the red marker along his pale, scarred skin. A red link of ink followed his fingers; a single, curvy line etched onto his skin.

"You draw…?" X asked with uncertainty.

Silver hummed half-heartedly in response, "It may not look like much… But it really does help a lot."

X nodded his head, a touch of doubt in his movements. His eyes drifted to the array of colours on the ground. He was curious on why he had so many, but opted that it was too much of a personal question. Instead, he asked a different one that he deemed safer, "Why don't you have _noir_? Black? I mean, it's the most common marker _couleur_ out there… _Et_ , uh… F-Forget I said anything…" The boy wished he could be swallowed up by the water.

"I didn't buy them," Silver answered, seemingly not bothered by the posed question. "My friends did," he added with a small smile.

The confession sunk into X's brain, a realization occurring as he noticed a specific pattern. X's mouth formed a fine line, the corners tilting up as he tried hard not to smile, "You mean…?"

The redhead nodded, "Red gave me this one." He paused from his drawing to gesture to the marker by lifting it up away from his arm. "Blue gave me that dark blue one; Green gave the green one while the yellow marker was a gift from Yellow. The lighter blue was from Crystal." Silver's smile only grew larger, his eyes softening as he named off his friends. "The full-sized markers are from Gold. He couldn't find a small gold one… He could only find it in a pack of two; metallic gold and silver."

X nodded his head silently; a thought crossing his mind. What colours would his friends give him?

Shauna would more than likely give him a pink or purple marker. He could see his dancing friend giving him an orange one while his smartest friend would give him a nice dark green one. He wasn't sure what Y would give him. Perhaps she'd give him a crimson red, or perhaps a bright yellow to match her hair.

" _D_ _ōzo_ ," the redhead suddenly spoke, holding something out to him. The silver marker rested between his fingers, the cap pointed towards X. "You try."

Hesitantly, X reached out to take the metallic marker from the Kanto native. He took off the cap, slowly rolling up the sleeve of his good arm. The marker felt clumsy in his left hand, considering that his left arm was currently under gauze. He stole a look at Silver for guidance, realizing the teen was lost to the world in his drawing. Turning back to his own arm, X held the marker down onto his skin. The wet ink tickled the skin, leaving an itchy sensation in its wake. X dragged it down the length of his arm, unsure what he was supposed to be doing. He looked back at Silver, noting he stopped his careless writing and was now doing something more precise and delicate.

He had switched from red to blue, drawing calculated strokes into the marker-free skin near his wrist. The motions were too accurate to be random. When Silver pulled his hand away to admire his masterpiece, X recognized some of the lines to be Silver's native tongue, but not sure what it said.

"What did you write?" X questioned before he could bite his tongue.

Silver gave a small smile, "It's a quote I tend to write on myself… ' _Ame futte chi katamaru…'_ It means, 'After the rain, earth hardens.'"

X merely shook his head yet again in conformation, letting Silver's words sink in.

"I find it helps, continuously writing it on me… It's almost always there for when I'm feeling... _yū_ _utsu..._ Do you have a quote you could write, X-san?"

X said nothing for a full minute, racking his brain for a response. He quickly thought of many quotes he had searched up when he was feeling down, but his mind kept reminding him of a popular French one.

" _Vaut mieux prévenir que guérir_ ," he decided. "It means, 'It is better to prevent than to heal'…"

Nodding, Silver pointed at his arm with the blue marker he held, "Write it."

The raven haired boy sighed, taking the marker to his wrist again. The words came out clumsy; messy letters that were almost unreadable.

The boy grimaced, almost throwing the marker into the mud. His words looked like a two year old wrote it compared to the carefully crafted calligraphy that graced his senior's arm.

"You get used to it," Silver mumbled, almost absent-mindedly. He switched from blue to green, filling in the gaps left between the red patterns he created. "I wasn't always ambidextrous." To emphasize his point, he raised his left arm as he quietly spilled "left handed" from his lips.

"Oh…"

Looking back down at his arm, X couldn't figure out what else to do with it. Hastily written chicken scratch and a few lines covered his arm. He figured he'd show the older Dex Holder, feeling that he should earn the appraisal of his mentor.

"That's good…" the redhead murmured as he looked over the boy's art, his voice quiet like before. Without another word, Silver showed him his arm.

The blue symbols stuck out like a sore thumb against his pale skin. They were precisely sketched into his skin as if he had years of practice. The red and green he used filled out most of the rest of his arm. The red marker formed a tangled line; it covered the length of his arm but it never broke. It never crossed itself as it weaved and turned. Silver had begun to fill out the space between the lines with his green marker, making the red pop out more.

" _Holà…_ "

"Yeah… When I'm really desperate on keeping myself from cutting, I'll have both my arms and legs filled out like this… If it's even worse, I'd move on to my chest."

X bit his tongue hard in order to keep himself from speaking out; he was desperate to know what had Silver on the edge like this… What demons he had sitting on his shoulders, whispering into his ears and convincing him to do this. Instead, X questioned something else, "How does this help?"

Silver's lips formed a thin line, "It's to keep you preoccupied… I mean, you did cut yourself to keep your thoughts away, right? Not because other people do it… right?" Silver's tone was softer than ever before. It had an ounce of accusation; his voice almost pleading X to say it wasn't so.

" _Non_ … It's to keep my thoughts away," the boy assured.

The redhead drew a stiff breath, his head shaking jerkily, "Well, according to research done by my friends, drawing pretty patterns where you want to cut helps… As long as it's not pen, that is. Just let your hand glide against your skin, just as you would if it were a knife. Don't allow yourself to think about what you're doing… Just let it happen. I find it easier when I'm listening to music – nothing depressing, mind you. It helps keep the world out of your ears."

X closed his eyes, edging the marker back to his skin. The wet tip touched his skin, causing a spike in irritation. He tried to banish any thought that dared entered his mind. He forced himself to focus on the feeling of the silver marker against his skin. The ink dried mere seconds after coming out of the tip, tightening the skin underneath. X's hand drifted fluidly up and down his arm. He felt himself calmer; imagining the irritation was blood that was caking itself onto his arm. He focused on the light pressure of the dull marker as it slid along his skin. When he opened his eyes, his arm greeted him with an array of silver lines.

They weren't neat like Silver's; they were formed carelessly without a second thought. It was a silver fury; the lines criss-crossed, angry and fast. They covered some of his chick scrawl quote.

He frowned, looking up at his senior, "It doesn't look pretty…"

" _Watashi o shinjite kudasai…_ It's much prettier than if it were bloody scars."

X felt his shoulders slump, his head bobbing in reluctant agreement.

" _Hoka ni_ … You didn't exactly pay attention to where you were drawing, _Baka-_ san," he chided.

Silver paused from his body art. He had filled in the rest of his skin with the green and was now working the front of his arm with the red lines. "The longer you do this, the easier and more satisfying it becomes… It took me forever for this to be any real help for me; I had already been cutting for years. You only just started, right? So you should find it easier to adjust." The older boy paused from his marking, "You can probably wash some of that off and start again if you really wanted to."

The Kalos native did just that, shivering when he suddenly plunged his arm into the icy water. He gently rubbed the ink off of his arm, scrubbing harder where it was being stubborn. His fingers tingled from the cold, becoming stiff. When he deemed himself clean enough, X used his sweater to dry himself off. The boy stole a look up at Silver as he did.

The older teen had his entire arm almost filled out by now, besides from the green he was doing now. His namesake eyes were blank and unfocused; X wasn't even sure he could see what he was doing any more.

The air between them felt like it was getting stiffer, making the younger boy feel uncomfortable. He wasn't used to being in the company of quiet people.

"So, um... _Tu_ … You said that your friends told you about this…?"

" _Hai_ ," Silver mumbled after staying silent for a moment.

X bit his lip, waiting for the teen to continue talking. When he made no indication that he was, X pressed on.

"Ah… How long have you… _tu sais_ , been…?"

Silver didn't miss a beat this time, "A few years… I was never really happy growing up. I think I was around ten when I first put the knife to my wrist… But it became a real habit when I was more like twelve or thirteen…"

X wasn't sure how old the teen was now, but he was for sure that he was cutting for a good number of years.

He suddenly took the marker to his wrist again, adamant about making it look neater.

" _Vos amis…_ When did they find out?"

"Blue knew since I started. She has a knack for finding things out on her own… I think she was the one who told Red, Green and Yellow after I started hanging out with them a lot… Gold forced me to tell him after he found my bloody knife – I hadn't cleaned it well that day. I brought it up with Crystal myself shortly after that… I didn't want her to be left out of the loop."

"Ah _, je vois_ …"

"You know, you should really tell your friends… They will want to know."

" _Je le sais_ … It's just… I don't know… I'd rather be in my bed without having to worry about anything… I don't even want to be here."

The silver marker carefully made its way up, down and around his forearm. He was careful to leave a space for his quote that he planned on rewriting, but he forgot to when he started writing again. The lines didn't cross over yet, and were much more carefully planned than before.

"Well, you're not the only one who doesn't want to be here."

The confession hit X harder than it should have, "You mean, you don't want to…?" Silver seemed almost happy being here with his friends; he took part in the activities, taught the younger Dex Holders… It didn't seem like he was homesick.

Silver snorted, rolling his eyes. " _Watashi o shinjite kudasai,_ I want nothing more than to be in my bed, under my blankets right now alone."

"Then why are you here?"

"My friends invited me."

" _Mais_ … If you don't want to be here, why are you? You aren't happy, are you?"

Silver shrugged his shoulders, some of his long hair falling down from them, "Not really, but my friends still invited me anyway. They know I'm not going to pretend to be happy – they don't expect me to. They still invite me to everything so I don't have to feel so alone… Even then, when I'm at my worse and I don't have the energy to get out of bed, they'll all come over in their pyjamas and have a movie night with me…"

X felt something catch in his throat. He felt his eyes beginning to burn as he fought away his tears. He could picture all of his friends forcefully piling into his room, pillows and blankets covering every inch of it. They would laugh at the movies they've picked, cry at the sad scenes and jump at the scary.

The pair fell silent, lost in their own drawings. X was finally getting the hang of being slow and deliberate with his marker when Silver suddenly moved to his other arm. X noticed older markings on it; yellow and gold covered the other arm. The redhead said nothing as he picked up the light blue arm to start his next masterpiece.

"Um… _Quand…_ When did they tell you about this alternative…?"

"Hmm… It was shortly after my last suicide scare... So I'd say about ten, eleven months ago? Huh, almost a year now…"

"Sui-Suicide…? You tried to commit suicide?!" his voice squeaked, an octave higher than normal. The information hit X hard; for some reason, he wasn't expecting someone like Silver to ever try to end his life, despite how scarred his tissue was.

"Wasn't intentional…" the boy grumbled, turning his head away. "I don't remember much… But according to Gold, he found me on my bathroom floor with blood covering me head to toe. He was certain I had already bled out by then… Apparently I had deep cuts on almost every limb on my body."

X didn't want to picture it but he did. He could see the redhead pale and unmoving, covered in nothing but the crimson liquid. He could see his gleaming silver eyes stare blankly at the ceiling. His blue lips were parted just slightly, not a breath passing through them. A pool of blood surrounded him on the floor.

"They almost lost me, had it not been for a 'mysterious doner' who donated his blood in time…" The short, exhalation of breath indicated that it was funny to Silver; the mysterious doner someone who wasn't so mysterious.

"Have… You ever really thought about suicide…? I mean, if you never meant to the last time, have you ever before?"

X himself never thought about killing himself. The pressure on his shoulders never reached that extreme. His remedy to the stress was to be left alone without any prying eyes; it worked up until recently when he was forced back into the spotlight. The child could only hope that it would never come to him having to contemplate ending his own life for a peace of mind.

" _Watashi wa anata ni uso o tsukanaidearou_ … The thought has passed through my thoughts more than once…" Silver begrudgingly admitted. "But as of right now, I don't feel the dire need to… It's only when my… _mondai…_ gets really bad. But usually someone's with me when that happens."

X could only stiffly nod his head. He felt numb at Silver's words. He was shrugging this off as if it were nothing, as if he never almost lost his life. The boy looked down at his marked arm, a sickening churning in his stomach. He could imagine the silvery ink becoming the same liquid red that pulsed through his body.

He lifted the marker from his arm before placing it against his wrist, rewriting the phrase from earlier. The letters came out neater this time; an onlooker could actually read what it said.

"I… I don't want to end up like that…" X whispered softly.

Silver gave a small breathy laugh, " _Īe_ … I wouldn't want you to either… It isn't pretty…"

The younger boy exhaled loudly in conformation, "I… I should tell _mes amis_ …"

"You should."

X stood up, wiping the muck away from his pants. Silver stood up as well, hiding his artwork underneath his sleeves.

"Your stuff…?"

The redhead blinked, looking back down to find he left everything there. "Oh… I would've left that all there…" he mumbled as he began to stuff his gloves and PokéDex back in his pocket.

X stood there, waiting for the trainer to pick up his stuff. He took another look at his arm, a finger tracing the silver lines he drew. The boy blinked, realizing that he still had Silver's marker.

"Oh… Uh, here's your marker back…" he said sheepishly.

Silver looked up at him, standing up straight as he pocketed the rest of his stuff. His gloves were back on his hands now, covering what was left of his markings. He eyed the marker for a second before brushing him off, "Keep it. I already got too many. It's yours as long as you use it for what I showed you."

X could feel himself grinning, placing the silver marker safely in his jacket pocket. He noticed Silver holding his steel pocket knife, twirling it in the air before sliding it into his pants pocket.

"Am I going to get my knife back?"

"You're joking, right _Baka_ -san? You are not getting this thing back for a long time… Not until I deem you clean of cutting."

X frowned slightly, but nodded his head. He could still feel the soreness of his left arm where the knife cut, wondering how Silver could do it so often. He didn't want to end up all scarred like his mentor, but yet he wanted relief from his mental torture. The marker in his pocket became heavy with the thought; a small smile playing on the boy's lips.

"I don't think you'll have to worry about me, Silver," he smiled. " _Mais…_ What about you? Are you still going to cut?"

Silver heaved a heavy sigh, his gloved hands finding their way into his pockets, "Like I said, it took me a while to get this far with my so-called _chiryō…_ I know it sounds hypocritical of me to say it, but I'm addicted to my knife… _Watashi_ … I just can't get the same satisfaction out of the marker as I do with my knife… But you aren't tainted as much as me… You actually have a chance, X-san."

The Kalos native frowned sadly at the Kanto native, their eyes meeting, "Will you promise me that you'll at least keep trying?" X asked hopefully.

The redhead gave a smile, his white teeth just barely poking out from between his lips, "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"I think I can make do with this… I'll tell my friends and hopefully they'll support me… I'll get more markers so that I can make cool body art like you do when I'm feeling down… I won't ever put a knife to my wrist again."

Silver smirked, eyes shining in approval, "You do that, X-san, and I'll try my best to keep myself away from the blade as well… I won't promise I will be able to all the time, but I will keep my markers near. Now, let's get back to camp to see what else the others have planned for us. They're probably worried."

X put his cap back on his head, following his senior into the bushes away from the lake.

" _Hé,_ Silver?"

" _Hai_?"

" _Merci."_

Silver laughed gently, shaking his head, " _Īe, kekk_ _ō d_ _esu,_ X-san."

The fog that hovered just above the surface slowly began to lift.

* * *

 **Translations:**

 ** _Anata wa baka =_ Japanese for "You are an idiot"**

 **-san = Japanese honorific**

 ** _Baka_ = Japanese for "Idiot"**

 ** _Oui_ = French for "Yes"**

 ** _Katte ni shiro =_ Japanese for "Do as you please"**

 ** _Non_ = French for "No"**

 ** _Pourquoi_ = French for "Why"**

 ** _Et_ = French for "And"**

 ** _Et tu_ = French for "And You"**

 ** _Īe_ = Japanese for "No"**

 ** _Désolé_ = French for "Sorry"**

 ** _Couleur_ = French for "Colour"**

 ** _D_ _ōzo_ = Japanese for "Go ahead", or "Go First"; used as "Here you go" or just "Here" for lack of better words**

 ** _Yū_ _utsu_ = Japanese for "Depression"**

 ** _Holà =_ French for "Whoa"**

 ** _Watashi o shinjite kudasai_ = Japanese for "Believe me"**

 ** _Hoka ni_ = Japanese for "Besides"**

 ** _Hai_ = Japanese for "Yes"**

 ** _Tu sais =_ French for "You know"**

 ** _Vos amis =_ French for "Your friends"**

 ** _Je vois =_ French for "I see"**

 ** _Je le sais_ = French for "I know" (I [the] know)**

 ** _Mais =_ French for "But"**

 ** _Quand_ = French for "When"**

 ** _Watashi wa anata ni uso o tsukanaidearou_ = Japanese for "I will not lie to you" ( Note: I had to use Google Translate for this one as I could not find a better translation. Sorry if it's wrong!)**

 ** _Mondai_ = Japanese for "Problem"**

 ** _Mes amis_ = French for "My friends"**

 ** _Chiryō_ = Japanese for "Medical Treatment"; context being therapy.**

 ** _Watashi =_ Japanese for "I"**

 ** _Hé_ = French for "Hey"**

 ** _Merci =_ French for "Thank you"**

 ** _Īe, kekk_ _ō d_ _esu_ = Japanese for "No, thank you"**


End file.
